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We have absolutely loved our history topic so far this term- significant people. We are asking the question “Why are Mary Anning and Sir David Attenborough significant?”

After learning about Sir David we all designed a poster discussing how important our world is and why we must take care of it. After designing them we used our oracy skills to present them with our ideas to the class. We will be taking a copy of our posters home today to share with you all.

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We had such a great time over Christmas celebrating with Christmas dinner, performance and jumper day.

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On Monday we mixed up with all of the classes in school to celebrate and learn about others religions, beliefs and cultures. In our classroom we made bracelets for our siblings to reflect what we had learnt about the Hindu festival Rakshan Bandham. At this festival sisters gift their brothers bracelets to keep them safe and brothers give their sisters gifts to show that they will always care for them. If we didn’t have. A sibling we made our bracelet for somebody else who is special to us. During the rest of the morning we also learnt about the Jewish game driedel, performed some drama activities telling Islamic, Buddhist, Christian and Jewish stories and wrote sentences about respect.

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Before Christmas we completed our science experiment where we tested out a few different materials to check if they were suitable for making an umbrella. We used our key vocabulary “waterproof” and came to the conclusion that a plastic material or a material coated in plastic would be the best one to use.

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We have been continuing with our computing in year 1 this term, learning to use a keyboard and a mouse. It’s quite tricky to drag and click on the touch pad but we have persevered and we’re able to create some great digital paintings of flowers.

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Happy new year and welcome back!

PE this term for year 1 is on a Monday and Friday. For reception it is on a Friday.

Instead of muddy Monday, Reception will be taking part in science lesson on a Monday afternoon this half term.

Book bags and reading records in every Tuesday,Wednesday and Friday please. Please remember to write in the record when you have read with your child and any comments too, we check them every weds and fri.

Year 1 spelling tests on Friday still this term.

As always if you have any questions, need help with any homework, or generally need a chat please do reach out on the gate or via email.

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Welcome back to school everyone and happy 2026! We have enjoyed using our new outdoor area exploration area. To link with our maths learning (subitising) we’ve been playing snakes and ladders to help us recognise the numbers on a dice at first glance. We of course have been doing some drawing and colouring as well to decorate our snakes and ladders boards. We can’t wait for all the fun ahead this spring term!

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This afternoon we had the best time at our dance workshop. We all gave it a really good go and had so much fun.

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We are all ready for our dress rehearsal this morning, we are soooo excited!

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We had to spread butter, roll the tubes into the seed and cut and tie string!

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We have used the instructions that we have carefully been writing to create our own versions of the bird feeder. We not only wrote the instructions in English but we have done a Geographical enquiry into where the best place on the school would be to place the bird feeders. We were very pleased with the result.

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We had the lovely opportunity to go down to the allotment today with Mrs Self. We learnt all about what is grown there as well as helping Mrs Self to clear up the beds ready for us to plant in spring!

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Thank you so much to everyone who could attend our teddy bears picnic before half term , we had the best afternoon with you all.

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We used our problem solving skills to build a sturdy bonfire, criss crossing the sticks over and having the longer ones at the bottom.

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We also enjoyed creating some beautiful poppies for our soldier display as well as our armistice day display.

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We had so much fun creating firework pictures on black paper using oil pastels. The results were lovely

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Potion making fun

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Spider legs activity

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Investigating autumn treasures

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We have started to use our spooky themed provision for the week and we are all loving it! Some time to explore and play after a long half term is just what we have needed.

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We had the privilege of seeing Michael Rosen at the Cheltenham lit fest today. He was so funny and the children loved learning all of the poems that he was reciting to us. A very popular moment was his performance of “chocolate cake”. He read us his new book which we enjoyed. When back at the school we read “We’re going on a bear hunt” and discussed how amazing it had been to meet the author.

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For the last activity of the day we went on a nature walk with the lovely Jim from Dean heritage. We explored different types of trees (species, deciduous, evergreen) and collected lots of exciting autumn treasures for our classroom. At the end of the walk we had a wonderful surprise- there had been tarp rolled out down the hill and we were allowed to roll down it!! It was so fun and we giggled and laughed SO much. What a wonderful trip.

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Dean heritage trip museum and exploring 

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Dean heritage trip museum and exploring 

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After the school room, we went for an adventure exploring the museum and mines. It was so exciting to see the mines after what weve learnt about the local forester miner community in the Victorian times, and that by the time we are 6 we would’ve been expected to work in them! We saw the Victorian garden, and found lots of familiar characters on the gruffalo trail.

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We had the best time ever on our trip to the Dean Heritage Centre today. We started off the day with a visit to the Victorian school room where we dressed up like Victorian children and learned about what a day at school was like in the 1800s. We had to give the school teacher a penny as you had to pay to go to school. The penny’s that they gave us were actually real ones from the Victorian era that had Queen Victoria’s face on them! The penny’s were so smooth it made us think about how many hands must’ve touched and used them. We practised writing, spelling and arithmetic on our slate boards and learnt that slate pencils are a bit tricky to use! We then learnt about the different punishments that children at school used to have. We thought that it was really strict and it made us really grateful that we are at school in 2025.

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We practised our counting through and past 20 this week using the counting tray in the classroom.

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We practised our counting to 10 with our maths tray this week. We also had to use our fine motor skills to pinch the conkers and move them using tweezers. We had fun exploring the tray.

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After Receptions woodland walk last week as well as our art activity where we used natural resources to paint, Kingfisher class have been very interested by the natural happenings of autumn. We had a go at using our collage skills (what we have been learning about in art in year 1) with our science and fine motor skills to produce some beautiful acorn collages.

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We have been discussing the season that we are in quite often at school this week and a lot of children have been producing some beautiful drawings to demonstrate what we have learnt. Lots of them have brought the drawings home to you and lots are on display in our classroom to help us decorate for the season.

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In Year 1, we have been further developing our fine motor skills in activities such as geo boards and Lego. This all helps towards our handwriting getting even better! And we have had fun doing it too.

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This week we have developed our phonics learning by choosing some phonics related activities in our choosing time. We have explored the acorn matching game- matching the initial sound acorn “hat” to the picture that begins with that sound. We have also been practising our letter formation in our sensory tray. This week I also sent home some letter formation laminated sheets as well as name cards to continue this learning whenever possible.

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We all really enjoyed our balance-ability lesson this week. Some of us even faced our fears and rode the bike for the first time! We followed the set course that our instructor gave us and took turns to have a go.

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Well done Kingfisher class for winning our key stage attendance award on Friday. We had an attendance of 97.1% last week!

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We have loved using our senses to explore the world around us. We used natural autumn resources (acorns, pine cones, conkers, sticks and leaves) to create a beautiful autumn tree with paint. We thought carefully about the colour that we used and discussed about why trees leaves aren’t green in the Autumn. The children were so pleased with the end result of this challenging task and were so excited to take their paintings home to you.